March 24th, 2023

While you may not know the name, if you’ve ever been on Pinterest, you’ve definitely seen one of Selkie’s designs before. 

The brand is famous for their romantic, straight-out-of-fairyland aesthetic, perfectly exemplified by their Puff Dress that went viral a while back. But, if you look below the surface, you’ll learn that Selkie has a lot more to offer than pastels. 

 

NYFW Collection

This spring, their NYFW collection celebrates The Last Unicorn, and the unicorn inside us all, with their signature pastels and puff sleeves, along with ruffles, miniskirts, and pillow-shaped handbags. However, the showstopper was clearly the gorgeous unicorn headpieces every model was wearing. You can find all the looks on their blog, We Dream of Ice Cream, and I highly recommend you do if you’re interested. 

If you see anything you like, you might want to keep a close eye on Selkie’s Instagram or website. Selkie is WRAP and BSCI certified, meaning they are very sustainable. All their pieces ship internationally and go up to 5XL, but they release clothing in waves and are notorious for selling out quickly. 

 

Their values

Their name, borrowed from Scottish folklore, tells the story of women capable of transformation into seals being forced into marriage through the theft of their sealskin. If they are able to recover their sealskin, the selkies can return to the sea and freedom. It obviously resonates with a lot of people who find freedom in clothing despite a world telling them to hide, and this idea of freedom through fashion at the center of Selkie is one of the many reasons the brand has such a dedicated following. 

Another reason is that they tap into a market that has been underutilized. As children, girls are bombarded by images of hyper-feminine women. For a long time, the only female role model in children’s media was the Disney princess: the stereotype of traditional femininity. But, as girls grow up, something shifts in the media they are expected to consume. The role models go from Snow White to Bella Swan, and the depiction of femininity radically changes. Instead of hyper-feminine women being portrayed as the ideal, they are now the villains. Hyper-femininity becomes shallow, vain, catty, boy-obsessed. Now, the new ideal is the ‘typical’ girl. She prioritizes comfort over style, and she’d never be caught dead in a dress. She doesn’t care about boys or popularity. In fact, there’s little she does care about. It’s important to note that though this archetype isn’t as pink, it still upholds some of the most oppressive,  patriarchal standards of traditional femininity. Bella Swan would never be seen putting on makeup, but her skin is always flawless. She doesn’t seek out male attention, but it still always finds her. 

The essence of this is that the best thing a woman can be, the thing that makes her both different and better than other women, is that she never tries to be beautiful, but always is. On the other side of this coin, this ideal also states that the worst thing a woman could ever be is not just ugly, but trying and failing at beauty.

 

Femininity in Selkie

This is where Selkie comes in. Their designs fully embrace intense, fairytale-esque femininity that so many of us have seen mocked our entire lives, and maybe taught ourselves to hate as a result. And, with models of every size, shape, and colour on their Instagram and the runway, (something VERY rare for a designer brand), they reject the notion that femininity can only be acceptable on someone who fits into our culture’s narrow and male-gaze centric view of beauty. There’s still room to grow, of course. It would be awesome to see a disabled or gender nonconforming model on the runway as well, but they already showcase a level of diversity that is completely unheard of in the industry.

Though the brand has only gained popularity in recent years, it’s already making waves in the fashion world, and I can’t wait for Selkie to continue on their mission of embracing the frilly, fabulous, and unapologetically feminine because, no matter your shape, size, colour, ability, or gender, everyone deserves the dress of their dreams. 

 

By Moss Bondy

Categories: Fashion